


Only the Bitter Ends

by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Card 1 [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Clone Trooper POV, Good soldiers follow orders, Killing Named Clones, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Order 66, Pleading, Sole Survivor, Suicide, This physical hurt me to write, Unrealized Lovers, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29711229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12/pseuds/EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: The deck they were on was littered with droid pieces and scraps of armor and bodies. So many bodies. All identical to his own, though some he knew were marred with years of experience under their yellow painted armor. He pulled himself across the platform, almost slipping on the slickened medal. His brother lying beside him had been killed by the droids—a blaster bolt having burned through his chest armor in the same way that one had lodged in his own leg armor, keeping him from standing.The man next to him had been killed by a lightsaber.Bad Things Happen Bingo: Pleading and Sole Survivor. (Please note Suicide Warning!)
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo Card 1 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2123604
Comments: 6
Kudos: 71





	Only the Bitter Ends

**Author's Note:**

> OMG So I'm back on my BTHB works (last couple of weeks have been HELL for me) and I start right out of the gate with this lmao
> 
> Just to be clear there is suicide present in this fic! Please pay attention to the warning and I will not be offended at all if you leave it here! 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy (or get really sad)! Please R and R, let me know what you think! 
> 
> Find me and my Bingo Card on Tumblr at this same name :)

They had been taught about Jedi, had learned that they were beings of extraordinary power and grace and skill that could devastate an entire battalion of droids if they had the right opportunity. In his two weeks of joining the battalion, he had hardly seen cause to justify that. He had seen General Kenobi, of course, but mostly on the negotiation table or standing at the bridge of the cruiser speaking with the commander. Never a harsh word, never a hint of something more sinister lurking beneath the surface, ready and able to lash out at the lot of them. General Kenobi had been kind, he thought, quick to offer a smile or a bit of reassurance after his brief mistakes.

He was the enemy now.

And the power of the Jedi was on full display. The deck they were on was littered with droid pieces and scraps of armor and bodies. So many bodies. All identical to his own, though some he knew were marred with years of experience under their yellow painted armor. He pulled himself across the platform, almost slipping on the slickened medal. His brother lying beside him had been killed by the droids—a blaster bolt having burned through his chest armor in the same way that one had lodged in his own leg armor, keeping him from standing.

The man next to him had been killed by a lightsaber.

The order had come so quickly that he still didn’t fully understand what had been happened. In a moment, he had been injured, with the Medic instructing him to elevate the wound away from the thick of the fighting. He had seen General Kenobi on his beast, retrieving his lightsaber from the commander. And then their comms had started buzzing. His own communicator, showing him the form of a man he only knew from hushed whispers and propaganda posters. His Chancellor, the man who his true loyalty lay with.

And the scene had changed so suddenly it had taken his breath away. He was alone in a moment, the Medic joining the other men who had stormed the platform, turning with the droids on the Jedi. He had wanted to go with them, needed to go with them. The Jedi was a threat to the Republic. He had to be eliminated. Immediately. But when he had turned as best he could, leg screaming in protest, he had not been prepared for the sight that waited there.

The General’s beast was falling, screaming as it tumbled to the water from the ledge he had been climbing. For a brief instant, he had thought the General had tumbled over the side with it. That even though they were still well within sight of the platform, that the men in the cannons had managed to take him out in a solid victory for the Republic.

But then there had been the lightsaber.

He saw it now again, still ignited and growing white and blue in his outstretched hand as he and the Commander faced each other. He had seen it then, too, moving in graceful, unending arcs as the swaths of troopers had stormed at him, determined to complete their orders. And they had fallen, not one by one, but in spades at the end of the blade and at the push of his outstretched hand. There was no contest. Whatever element of surprise that had existed had been lost when their initial attack failed.

It had cost them dearly.

He let out a ragged breath, tasting blood as he used his fallen brothers’ body to pull himself to a sitting position, leaning on the butt of his blaster rifle in a move that would have gotten him decommissioned on Kamino. How far away those days of training seemed now.

“Cody, please,” The Jedi was speaking, his voice soft. Pleading. “Fight it.”

Anger swelled in his chest at the request. Fight what? Their direct orders? This man was a traitor to the Republic and everything that they had fought so long and hard for. Everything that the men had died for. What the clones had been made for. He felt a surge of pride at the Commander, who kept his blaster rifle leveled at the Jedi’s head, helmet covering his face. He must have been afraid. Who wouldn’t be afraid?

Behind the Jedi there were only corpses. He saw the Medic's body, blaster in hand and bag still strapped to his back, lying distended farther up the platform. The Jedi were ruthless, unforgiving. He turned his head coughing as quietly as he could manage as more blood came into his lungs. Had he been shot in the chest? He couldn’t remember much before the order anymore.

At his glance, he realized he could see no other living clones. Only him. Him and the Commander, left to stand against this greatest evil facing their Republic. He saw clones whose names he had been learning—now forgotten for the more important task at hand—lying dead with burns across their chests. Missing limbs, broken weapons. All the Jedi’s doing.

“Cody, please. I know you remember,” His voice was grating, the desperation in it only worse, “I can’t kill you, Cody.”

“The Jedi are an enemy of the Republic,” The Commander answered, voice hard as stone, keeping his rifle steady. “You are an enemy of the Republic.”

“Cody, I don’t know what’s happened,” The Jedi paused, stumbled over his words, “I can help you. I—We can figure out what’s happened.”

Was that the Commander’s gun slipping downwards? No, of course not. He would never betray the Republic.

“You are an enemy of the Republic,” The Commander repeated. Was his voice wavering? Was there a hint that he might give in? It was mind tricks, it had to be all mind tricks. The Jedi were known for them.

He blinked, his vision starting to go gray around the edges. He moved his eyes away from the Jedi and the Commander to the man in front of him. Reaching a hand down, he pushed the helmet until it came away from his face. Boil. Wasn’t that his name?

They weren’t supposed to have names. Maybe it was best that this one had died.

“Cody,” The Jedi again. Did he ever stop talking? He shifted his stance, lightsaber no longer raised in an attack position, “I know you’re still in there. I can feel you.” Was the Jedi crying? “Come back to me. Please.”

The Commander didn’t move a muscle, feet still firmly planted on the platform, but he knew the shot wouldn’t come.

“My men are dead,” The Commander spoke, but his tone was strange. Not as hard. Not as sharp. The thought that the Commander was weakening gave him a new burst of strength. He was still here, he could still fight. He pushed hard back, letting the blood leaving his mouth spray out from his mouth as he did. He slotted his rifle against his shoulder.

His hands were unsteady. Not from fear, not from worry. He couldn’t control them any longer, but he would make this work.

“Our men,” The Jedi said softly, “Please, Cody, I need to know what’s happened. Why they’ve attacked me. I need you.” He remembered a moment on the command bridge as though it were a very distant memory. The Commander and the Jedi had been standing together, turned into each other. Closer, very close, speaking in low voices as though they didn’t want others to overhear them. He could remember the blush on his own cheeks as though he had been intruding on something quite private though he had been reassured by many others that nothing was happened there. Not until the war was over. It was only a feeling that the men knew not to mention except for well out of earshot of the two of them.

A memory that made him angrier than perhaps anything had yet.

He shifted his rifle, slotted at the Jedi’s back, right where his heart was beating under his fire-stained tunic. He was distracted by the Commander. By whatever that feeling had been between them.

“Cody, I—”

But the words never finished. He choked on them. As the blaster bolt tore through him. It was a perfect shot, one that his brothers could be proud of.

The shining blue white of the lightsaber faltered as it hit the platform with a loud clanging. The Jedi’s body landed almost softly beside it.

The Commander didn’t move at first, as though he thought that perhaps he had been the one to fire the shot after all. Until the Commander looked up and saw him, rifle still poised.

Blood crested in his mouth. Something was wrong, very wrong. He didn’t need a medic to tell him that. He waited on the Commander to come over, to offer to check his wounds, but he didn’t. Instead, it was as though their entire body turned to water, limbs slackening and rifle falling to the ground. He took his helmet off, an indescribable mix of emotions on the scarred face underneath.

The Commander walked slowly, methodically, to the Jedi’s body and turned him over onto his back. Fingers hunted for a pulse and came up empty, the Jedi’s body sliding down the Commander’s arms to rest on the platform.

And then they were facing each other again. He could hear the rattling in his own breath, death coming quickly now, with his lungs full of blood. Who had shot him? What droid could claim the honor of his death, when he had killed a Jedi? When he had secured the future of the Republic.

The Commander walked over to him, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he was going to try and help him after all. To get him to emergency medical. Instead, he simply looked at him for a long moment, as if there was nothing to say.

“It was our orders, Sir,” He said finally, feeling the bizarre urge to defend himself. There was no reason to; he had done his duty.

“So it was,” The Commander said, though he could hardly see him now, vision gone in spots and fading in the rest, the look on this clone’s face was one that he knew would haunt him if he lived long enough. It was not an emotion, not a look of anguish or horror or regret. It was a look of nothing. As if there were nothing at all left inside him.

And then the Commander moved, kneeling beside him and taking hold of his gun. One of the Commander’s hands clasped over his own, still grasping the trigger. Was he going to take it? Finish him off with it?

But then the gun was moving, still in his grip. Swinging through thin air until it pressed against the Commander’s temple. And then his fingers were being crushed in a vicelike grip, pressed into the trigger catch of his rifle until he could feel the familiar kick of it firing.

He blinked, breathing out what he knew now were his last breaths here on this platform. He didn’t look at the Commander’s body, now sprawled at his feet. He didn’t look at the Jedi, lying so far away. Or at the clone who’s name he had now forgotten. Or any of the others.

Instead, he looked at the sky that seemed so far away from the ledge of this pit. It was clear. It was pretty, he thought. He closed his eyes to it, knowing it would be the last thing he saw. But it didn’t fill his mind as he thought it might. Instead he saw the Commander’s face, haunted. The Jedi. The pair of them, on the command bridge. What had that feeling been? Why did it hurt so badly to think of it now?


End file.
